Because the Beyond Called
by Menthol Pixie
Summary: Dean is a large, dark blur wavering above Sam's face, identifiable only by the smell of gun oil and leather and the fact that he's here while Sam's feeling like death.
**Because the Beyond Called**

" _Obviously, Doctor, you've never been a thirteen-year-old girl." - Cecilia, The Virgin Suicides_

XXX

Dean is a large, dark blur wavering above Sam's face, identifiable only by the smell of gun oil and leather and the fact that he's here while Sam's feeling like death. Everything else is white, too bright and sharp, too big. Sam squints at the empty surroundings suspiciously, willing them to arrange into something recognisable, and the Dean-blur tilts towards him.

"There you are, Sammy. Good, good work, eyes on me now, okay?"

This is a long, complicated string of words that takes a long time to cross the air between them and work it's way between Sam's ears. Dean sounds busy, stressed. Sam gets the feeling that this isn't the first thing Dean's said to him, just the first to make it all the way across the void, and it makes him all the more determined to obey. Unfortunately, Dean starts doing something with his wrist and when he tries to move it he can't and that's more than enough to make him forget that he's meant to be paying attention to what Dean's saying.

"What... why...?" He can't figure out what he wants to be asking. There's something thick and black holding him to the bed. His wrists are wrapped in bandages and they ache deep, deep under his skin where even the painkillers can't reach. Dean tears open Velcro restraints and it's dizzyingly loud in the white silence.

"Focus, Sam." Dean's hands are cupping his face, blurred features leaning closer. "Hey, can you do this?"

 _Do what?_ Sam should ask but instead his mouth forms, "What happened?" The words are all slippery and sliding away but Dean understands because he pauses, presses his forehead briefly against Sam's in a way he only ever does when Sam is too drugged up or hurt to be sure it's not imagined, and turns away to release Sam's still-captive wrist. Sam takes this reaction and adds it to the pain in his arms, the cloudy sensation of painkillers and something else, something like the lorazepam he was briefly prescribed in college but stronger, so much stronger, and concludes that whatever happened must have been bloody and frightening, bad enough to require hospital, sedation and stitches.

"What do you remember?" Dean asks.

What does he remember? Newspaper articles spread across a tabletop, an old house, a tragic back story. Nothing beyond stepping through those doors except for the drip, drip, drip of red on white in a motel bathroom.

"Um..." is all he comes up with.

"You went all _Virgin Suicides_ on me, Cecilia." Dean touches his fingertips to Sam's neck, just below his ear, and holds them up for Sam to inspect. "Courtesy of a thirteen year old dead girl with a grudge against the living."

"Ectoplasm," Sam murmurs as Dean wipes sticky fingers on his jeans.

"Bingo," Dean nods, then glances over his shoulder at the door. "That's enough catch up for now. Ghost's done for, you've finished impersonating a busted water main, and it's time to go." His fingers are moving as he talks, gently plucking a needle from the crook of Sam's arm. "I'd wait for that to finish but they're already waiting for me to sort out the problem with our insurance, and seeing as the problem with our insurance is that it's complete and utter bullshit, we'll just have to hope that the two bags they already pumped in will be enough. Try not to faint, okay?"

"Okay...?" Sam agrees, feeling lost and rushed as he frowns down at the bandages on his wrists. The tube Dean unhooked him from leaks a sluggish stain of blood over the hospital bedsheets and Sam thinks he should do something to stop it.

"No, don't worry about that, Sammy. Worry about moving your legs – that's it. Good. All right, think you can stand?"

"No."

"That's the spirit." Dean drags him upright anyway, and keeps him upright when the room spins in a slow, swooping circle. Sam tries to cling dizzily to Dean's leather jacket but his wrists are stiff with bulky bandages, stinging sharply with each twist of flesh, and his fingers feel swollen and useless.

"Whoa..."

"It's okay, I've got you. No fainting, remember?"

"No fainting," Sam agrees regretfully. Fainting feels like a good idea right now, a really good idea...

"Hey, quit it. I'm serious, Sam, I have, like, a zillion jokes about the similarities between you and teenage girls floating round in my head and I swear, if you pass out and I have to carry you, I'm gonna make sure you hear every single one of them."

"'m not fainting," Sam insists. He takes a little more of his own weight in an effort to prove it, not that he thinks it will actually have any affect on Dean's willingness to tease him in the future.

"Well, all right then, Girl, Interrupted, lets get outta here before you end up sharing a padded room with Angelina Jolie."

" _Deeean_."

"You know, I wouldn't mind sharing something with Angelina Jolie..."

"Stop it," Sam moans, "Or I'll make you carry me."

"Like the swooning princess you are, right, Winona?"

"You suck."

"You love me."

"I hate you. I'm still conscious, what more do you want from me?"

"All right, fair enough. Make it to the car and I'll keep the jokes to a minimum until you're awake enough to really appreciate them. Deal?"

"That's not a good deal."

"Yeah, well, if you didn't want me to tease you, you should have kept all your blood _inside_ your body. Those are the rules, you know that."

Dean is a large, dark blur at Sam's side, identifiable only by the smell of gun oil and leather and the fact that he's here making jokes while Sam's feeling like death. Everything else is white, too bright and sharp, too big, and trying to see straight sends his brain spiralling towards the floor, so Sam clenches his eyes shut and trusts his brother.

END

 _A/N: Written for the OhSam comment fic meme for the prompt: Sam wakes up on a psychiatric ward with no clue as to how he got there. The time setting and reason is all up to you, could be due to a curse, real life illness, body swap etc! Bonus points for including Dean!_


End file.
